Japanese Experiment: Result

Posted October 15th 2015 10:13 pm

It's been 30 or so days since Keat and I started our "Living Japanese" Experiment, and we've received the power bill, which means it should give us a better understanding of how our different lifestyle has helped or hindered us.

So here's the result:

For those of you that like table comparisions instead of images, here's the September bill (when we started) as compared to our October bill:

September

October

Δ

Water

$15.82

$15.82

No Change

Sewer

$15.81

$15.81

No Change

Electricity

$92.42

$78.51

-15.05%

GarbageCollection

$9.00

$9.00

No Change

Renewable Energy Fee

$0.56

$0.56

No Change

Tax

$6.51

$5.54

-14.9%

The verdict: Not much.

Our Electricity usage went down a bit, which I'm not sure whether it is because we used less electricity because we didn't use the big energy drainers (like the stove and dishwasher) or because my primary hosting server quit and I took out the servers (although that was on 10/5, only 10 days short of the end of the experiment).

I was quite surprised to see that our water, sewer, and garbage stayed exactly the same (I knew the Renewable Energy fee would stay the same, and the Tax of course would differ). I thought that we would have used remarkably less or more water since we were washing all of our dishes by hand, but I guess our town just doesn't work that way.

Does this mean that Keat and I will continue this 'experiment'? Probably, since we are looking at moving to Japan in 5 years or less. It will depend on a number of circumstances, including jobs.